The time came when the trial was over and the anxious days past, but the lawyer was still to pay, fifty dollars in all, and Joe Phillips, the farmer, surety for the debt. Henry had been Jasper’s witness, and what Henry had seen and sworn to became the way of what had been although Albert and three of his friends had told differently and Mrs Wingate herself. But what Henry had seen was finally established as true. The trial had lasted two days, but on the second day the farmer had come across the field to tell her that Jasper was cleared, for he had heard by the telephone soon after the verdict was given. Later Jasper came, noisy and merry at being released from suspicion, but reticent and unwilling to talk, as if he were weary of it.

Jasper was no longer in danger now of being taken away, and the prison where the men wore striped clothes and slept in cells of iron stood up clearly in her mind now as something one could look at without a sickening pang of fear. It grew sharper in line as her emotion withdrew from it; coldly pictured and apart, fading daily. The winter passed and spring came again, a spring of eager living in the pastures, in the cabin, eager living up in the plum thicket where the loud birds sang at early morning. There would be another child before the year was done. Slowly they were paying the lawyer, all that could be spared, Joe Phillips trusting them with the debt, giving them their time. Her body was strong now and the blood ran high in her cheeks and in her warm strong hands.

The child was a girl and they named her Nannie because Jasper favoured that name, his own mother having been called by it. The girl child lay more quietly than the boy had lain, and Jasper delighted in her even more and he softened his way to her as if he considered that she was of the woman kind, even as she lay in the cradle. Ellen would look on from the door, pleased to see his gallantry flowering anew, to see him become a wooer as he took her tiny body from the pillow, addressing her with chivalrous admiration. ‘God knows! Teach her old Pap to dance, she will. First four forward and the grand right and left! God knows! Miss Nannie Kent, could I have the compliments of this-here next dance? Miss Nannie? Could I have the pleasure of the compliments? Swing your partners! Stand around, you-all, stand aside. Here comes Miss Nannie. God knows! Look at it!’